They still haven’t given up hope of making Towie’s Mark Wright their torch bearer.

He’s fronted a Take Me Out spin-off show, been snuck this month on to The Big Reunion and The Brits: Backstage and was even sent to Hollywood with his mates in 2012 for some structured reality cobblers watched by me and 17 others.

Give it up as a bad job, you’d think they’d conclude. But this is ITV2, TV’s dumbest channel.

So we now have Party Wright Around The World, a series made to fit the title, which began with a large animated wooden crate being dropped on him from a great height.

The good ideas ended there, sadly. At first glance anyway.

“He’s on a mission,” you see, “to ­sprinkle his Essex party magic around the world,” by organising shindigs for deserving cases.

Television for television’s sake.

Armed with the mantra that “you need people to make a good party” (you don’t say?) he headed to Miami’s gay scene to organise a birthday bash for fun-loving Joanna – who came with a sob story, ­naturally – and predictably started ­vocalising the show’s own review.

“I would rather this episode not go ahead. This was an absolute disaster.

“This is absolutely obscene. This is ­absolutely ridiculous. I can’t believe what I’m doing here.”

Yet with these words, astonishingly, a point to all this emerged.

No, really.

Unlike Mark Wright’s Hollywood Nights, the producers have made him the butt of the joke.

So what transpired was an hour of the stooge resisting calls to dress up in drag and dance Latino style “with four left feet” for Joanna.

Without which, the narrator informed us, the night just wouldn’t be the same: “The party is two days away but Mark can’t turn up without being able to salsa.”

No further explanation was given. But behind his back the crew started working wonders to royally stitch him up.

The salsa troupe Wright had booked were mysterious no-shows and Corrie’s Michelle Keegan was phoned to persuade her fiancé to become drag queen “Marquita” who looked weirdly styled on Peter Andre.

And the little trouper took the bait, albeit under protest: “This is a bit ­uncomfortable for me.

“I feel very uncomfortable doing it.

“The thought of it makes me extremely uncomfortable.

“Dressing up as a woman is something I was very, very uncomfortable with.”

Well then why didn’t you say?

Televised party planning with an Essex plank is a stupid idea, even for ITV2.

And no TV vehicle given to Mark Wright is ever going to work. But, whisper it, if they do this to him every time, I might be in danger of staying tuned.

At least for this week’s episode, which sees him sleeping wild in the bear-infested Canadian wilderness.

Which might make him feel... what’s the word, Mark?

“Uncomfortable.”

Ricky Wilson: No singing (Photo: BBC)

Ricky don't sing those phone numbers

Outlandish pop star comparisons on The Voice last night.

"Jermain has this Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder vibe.”

“Jimmy’s got this Bryan Adams-type rock voice.”

“You sounded like Rod Stewart.”

None of these, though, were as ridiculous as Ricky Wilson telling viewers: “You’re in for a treat.”

We’re in for 2h 10min of synchronised shouting, Ricky, or “battle rounds” officially. And that’s only half the buggers.

It does, however, explain Kylie telling Nomakhosi: “You could sing the phonebook.”

She could sing it twice from start to finish on this show.

Ender plot in the mangle

A first for EastEnders... Max Branning was ­having trouble with his ­washing machine, thereby giving the local Hotpoint repairman his first call-out since 1985.

Still, nothing makes sense.

A shot of his mobile phonebook revealed Jake and John under the Js yet no entry for brother Jack or nephew Joey.

Worse, Stacey Slater’s ­return has gone from funny – her Dick Turpin routine, scarpering with a scarf over her face – to the same old daft flannel, with the wanted knifewoman visiting jail with no one batting an eyelid.

Best line?

Billy Mitchell: “I’ve only got a little ladder and I ain’t a lesbian.”

Who knew?

Top drawer telly

Keeley Hawes in the increasingly brilliant Line of Duty.

Ant and Dec’s I’m A Celebrity Get Out Of Me Ear genius on Saturday Night Takeaway.

All Star Family Fortunes revealing Sinitta has an aunt named Pearly Gates.

Andi Peters, The Big Reunion narrator, on A1’s split: “Like the others, Mark became the sponge layer in a vast trifle of despair.”